//------------------------------// // Inside the Beast // Story: Fallout Equestria: A Raiders Mark // by Vocal Sonder //------------------------------// He took tense steps around a nearby sleeping guard. A rifle muzzle scraped the edge of his nose as he eek'd by with barely a hairs breadth to spare. The hallways had gotten smaller and smaller the farther on he went inside. The thick leather walls seemed to close in on him from every direction and he'd even needed to backtrack a few times after a few wrong turns had brought him to dead ends. He couldn't tell but from his best guess he had been wandering around inside for nearly an hour. He had thankfully seen no one up and about, but his meandering search for the kitchen had also come up with nothing, only a small box of half eaten Fancy Colt Cakes which he had wolfed down almost immediately. He had eased open door after door and had jingled countless locked knobs in a vain search for where the camp kept its stockpile but it was getting to the point that he figured luck was not going to help him. Each door he opened only served to make his stomach ache even more. As his hoof left yet another doorknob in defeat, his ears suddenly picked up something. A whisper of sound was coming from around the next bend in the hallway. It almost sounded like... a record? Warbling tones moved past his ears in soft waves. Unlike the upbeat notes and blaring vocals he had heard earlier throughout the camp these ones were like silk on sand. He could almost imagine the smooth leather walls reverberating in time with the rise and fall of the crescendo like a breath in time with the music. He moved on numb legs, not even aware of his full momentum as they carried his thin legs close to the bend. The staccato plunks of piano keys started to increase from within the song giving the sad brass warbles a melancholic tinge. Involuntarily, his eyes moistened at the corners as he began to hear words fade into the air. A mares voice, entirely distinct from the record being played, rose into time with the notes. It lulled fully into being as he pushed himself forwards, no longer caring to keep to the shadows. His hooves carried him swiftly around the corner. Luring him to come face to face with the hardened paneling of a door. The singing softly carried through the thin wood to his attentive ears. He could make them out now as he pushed on the wood, the words- "-Carried away, Come to me, Baaaaby don't you know, how to cry. Li-isten to what I have to say, Be what you want me to be, Don't make me another sky. Closely, Kindly, Hug-'n your ba'-a-by tight." ... "M- Mama?" His tiny voice nearly broke as the words cut off her sad delivery. The mare jolted at his voice, and slowly turned from her desk. Tears were flowing freely now. They streamed down his face as he watched her golden mane turn. The music, the song, it was like a film reel had been turned on in his brain. It was over, finally over. The song he would hear in the waning hours of twilight, her soft singing lulling him to sleep as her beautiful green eyes looked into his. He could finally cry and have her tell him it would be alright. No more being brave. No more holding it inside. To nuzzle against her chest and breath in the flowers she always kept as he just let it all go. He could! He could finally be home, and.. and- The music continued its warbling tones, unimpeded as his blood began to freeze in his veins. Through blurry tear laden eyes he watched as she fully turned to face him, and almost shrieked in terror. Half of her head was nearly burnt to a hollow crisp. One scarred eye stared blankly from its socket as the other trained itself on his tiny figure in the doorway. And worst of all... "Hey," she set down a knife as she stood up, a snarl forming on her mangled visage, "who the buck are you?" "I, uh- buh, I-" Her gaze hardened as she reached over and removed the needle from the record, "You'll tell me how you got in here meat or I'm going to skin the life from you, fuckwit!" Her snapped words were clipped off with gritted teeth. His eyes stared at her flank as she got out of her chair, a sickle and leather motif stood out against an oily violet fur. A mile a minute, his brain raced to the forefront of reality and finally caught up with him. With widening eyes he looked from her to the walls. Every corner and crevice of the room was covered, crammed, with drying strips of hide and fuzz. A small fluffy ear about his size poked out from a nearby drying mass of stacked leathers. Without warning the smell of the room rushed into his nostrils as the moment finally unfroze. *urp* He puked on the floor. "Ugh, what the fuck!" She recoiled from the tiny puddle as it splashed on her hooves. Without stopping to even wipe his chin he whirled and ran out the door with a flurry of tail hairs, slamming it in the process. A tremendous *bang* resounded down the hallway as he rushed back out the way he had come. The mare's shouts followed closely at his heels as he raced around the bend. He couldn't make out what she was saying with the wind whipping through his ears but he didn't ultimately care. Tears streamed down his dirt flecked cheeks as he ran, passing the original corner that had led him here he suddenly skidded to a halt. Bits of rock cascaded from his grinding hooves onto a stallions. His ears drooped and pupils shrank as a glinting gun barrel towered directly into his face. Glittering light lit up the ecstatic eyes of the stallion as time slowed to a crawl. It took only a second for him to truly register the colts presence as his magic unlocked the safety to the trigger. "Ha-Hah, MEAT!" He pulled the trigger The colt ducked. *BOOM* The hot whizz of coppered lead shaved his head by mere millimeters, tearing a hole through his loose hood and plowing a few mane hairs free. It pocked the dirt just behind his rear end and ricocheted straight into the tent wall with a resounding CRACK. Ringing erupted in his brain as he reeled from the blast. A moment later his breath caught in his throat is the hot gunpowder refused to let him take another. He was already reaching for his front even before he had the chance to cough out the invading air. He wheezed as a trickling sensation ran down past his brow and a few drops of blood landed on the dirt below. Grasping the handle of his knife in his mouth he ducked forwards just as the twang of hot brass hit the side of his face. Looking up he saw the stallion rearing; racking another bullet into the chamber as he yelled something down at the colt. His mouth worked mutely up and down as spittle flew in wild directions with each overzealous syllable. Teeth grinding into the grip he jerked his head upwards, plunging the knife deep into the stallions front just before the rifle bolt fed home. Sinking it in deeply, he released the hilt and dove between the stallions rear legs just before the body limply fell with rifle in tow. He rolled forwards and caught a glimpse of the rifle as it fired again down the hallway. Just as the scarred mare came bounding around it. A fraction of a second later the mares head snapped back sickeningly. Before he could see any more his roll ended, leaving him looking down an empty hallway once more. Spread eagle in the dirt, his head pounded with the ringing tempo of a thousand thunderstorms and a high pitched screech invading his skull. It was almost impossible to tell up from down. Little pats of blood fell from his hood as he hauled himself to a stand. The deafening roar from his ears continued as he ran pell-mell down the hallway and away from the scene behind him. Not wanting to look back he concentrated on searching every dark nook or cranny for a place to hide. Tears still blurred his vision as he made a few random twists and turns before turning down a tiny hallway he vaguely recognized. It ended about twenty paces farther on with a low table that had been so thoroughly crammed with junk it had fully reached the underside of the lowest drawers. Clawing his way into the detritus he carved a hole and slammed his body into it to shovel aside it all. His teeth clattered as his heart continued to race. His forehead felt like it was floating on water as he sucked in lungful after lungful of air into his small chest. He crammed as much trash as he could into the hole he had made and shrunk farther back under the table. Soon it was pitch black and his heart slowed to a steady thrum. The ringing fading tortuously to a dull whine as he laid his head down and stared, shell-shocked, into the blackness surrounding him. The high of adrenaline beginning to leak out of his body. Small shivers ran from his nose to his tail for minutes on end. He wanted to cry again, but nothing came. He could feel the leather wall he was up against vibrate as to what he imagined was hundreds of hooves, all running about about in the surrounding hallways. He curled up into a tighter ball as he imagined the thousands of ponies, guns drawn, teeth barred, thundering around. Just for him. Shivering, he pushed a few more wads of old newspapers into the hole he had covered and further closed himself off from the outside world. Resting his aching head on an old stack of newspapers he fled into unconsciousness, all the while shaking and hoping he wouldn't scream when he woke.